General Update #5

Shift change occurred at ~6:02 p.m. with overnight nurse (Amanda) taking over. Day shift nurse verified that Joyce is currently taking two Norco (painkillers) as current dosage. Catheter still in use (will be removed once Joyce has been cleared for walking and can travel to bathroom under her own power).

At 6:52 p.m. Joyce's blood pressure and temperature was taken. 

Blood pressure was 118/72 and deemed good. Temperature was 98.1 degrees. 

Blood samples collected from Joyce at 7:13 p.m.

Nurse checked Joyce's breathing at 7:45 p.m. using stethoscope and checked Joyce for any belly pains. Checked for bruising on torso. Hands, arms, feet and legs were inspected for pain and movement capabilities. Nurse and nurse's aide helped adjust Joyce into a more comfortable position for the evening. Nurse confirmed that Joyce uses oxygen at home (2 litres). 

Plan for the overnight hours are for Joyce to rest and nurse to keep the pain under control.

Pain medication to be administered in near future.

Dusty departing for home and is planning on returning to Gritman to stay with Joyce tomorrow starting around 7 a.m. - 7:30 a.m. and will renew posts at that time as new information becomes available. 

 

Message(s) from Joyce:

Joyce is pleased to report that her salmon dinner was delicious and was the best salmon she has had in a while. Rest assured, she has confirmed that she is not planning on falling down the stairs in the future as a method to secure herself more salmon dinners. Joyce's parents did not fish much so fish dinners are still a novelty she enjoys. Vernon liked halibut and would buy it on occasion. Joyce can remember him taking June and her to Spokane one day, and when they went out to a restaurant for a meal he ordered halibut. It was wonderful, that memory, bot of the meal and having spent time with him. He was gone from their lives most of the year, so it was quality time. Vernon took the girls shopping and bought them their winter coats. It was an adventure day with their father that he wanted them to have.  

Phillip tried to fish out of the irrigation ditches when he was a young boy visiting Vernon and Alice's home in Rathdrum, which was cute. It didn't matter that it was impossible, he would try it anyway. Loyal seemed to like fishing but never took the boys (Craig, Tim, Phil) out on fishing trips when they were young as far as Joyce can recall. 

Joyce had all kinds of people pass through the farmhouse and stay with the family over the years. Lloyd, her younger siblings (Kathy and Skip), and so on. Lloyd stayed because of a job (not working for Loyal, someone else). Skip got something caught in his craw one time and had it in for Alice for a while and felt he could not live with his parents and that is what brought him to live with Joyce. Kathy moved in to attend Moscow High School. Alice and Vernon at that point in their lives kept moving around so it let Kathy just attend one school and focus on graduating, as did Skip. There was a man, Glen, who was a friend of Skip's who stayed for a couple of years. "Always seemed to have somebody there."

The large willow tree in front of the farm house came from up the road at Dora Fleener's property. The boys got a cutting one day. Joyce can see the picture of it clearly in her mind. All they did was take a branch, stick it in the mud and then walked away. Now look at it!

The wind windmill was always on the property, either put into place by Burt Ayer or the homesteaders before him. It used to have a pump where you could manually crank water from the well in addition to the windmill pumping water up. There were several times Joyce had to hand pump water into the water trough for the cows on non-windy days. 

In searching for best locations to grow vegetables (squash, pumpkins, potatoes) they tried planting in all sorts of locations around the farm. Years back, when the barn was still up on the hill, they had planted squash and pumpkins and line of sight angle was just right so their growth progress could be checked using binoculars. It looked like it would be a good crop until the Moose came through and cleaned everything out.

There used to be a house up there by the barn and coming down toward the well that was up there was a line of golden delicious apple trees. Nice, nice trees. Great apples. Loyal removed them. He didn't like trees any better than my other son. I suppose that proves the apple doesn't fall far from the tree? It's weird. 

Joyce used to store apples in the cellar room and to keep the mice out of them she used repurposed metal sugar tins. Each apple was wrapped in newspaper and when the tins were stored in the back room of the cellar room they would not spoil or freeze. The one winter where it hit 50 below, the apples survived fine. Joyce learned about wrapping apples in newspaper as a method of food preservation from these old magazines (circa 1800s) she had found in the Wallace house. She thinks she may still have some in the cookbook office. They were a good resource. A lot of the gardening knowledge she gained came from them, too. 

Juanita tried to do a lot of extracurricular activities in high school, mostly whatever her friends at the moment were doing. Juanita liked her friends a lot. They used to come out to the house often as well and they would have a TV party in the basement and eat carrot sticks. That was their idea, they liked the carrot sticks. They'd make them for themselves and that was their TV party snack as they visited.

Craig, Tim and Phil had friends over to the house, too. Phillip had several friends that almost lived there. Phillip and some of his friends would walk the railroad and hunt for ground squirrels and stuff like that. Craig would have friends out that would play basketball with him and got help from his dad to setup a spot where they could throw free shots. Tim's friends would come out and ride their motorbikes around the place, and other times he would go off with them elsewhere.

The train car out at the Deary property came with the place when it was purchased by Joyce and Loyal. The previous property owners had moved it into place. It wasn't in terrible condition as Joyce can recall. They were trying to make it into a bunkhouse for people (farmhands) to sleep in but they never really got that far when life turned around abruptly for them. 

Loyal met Warren Hill through machine repair and became friends. Warren Petersen was met through church and became friends that way. Warren Hill had a cabin in the Selway that he let the family use for a trip one year so they all took a road trip. Joyce had a horrible migraine come upon her during that trip and had to lay on the beach, hardly able to move for most of the days they were supposed to be having a family adventure. Isn't that terrible? You hardly ever get to go on a trip and then you get a migraine! It was pretty up there, though. 

For the record, Joyce likes all kind of cookies. No favoritism for that category of baked goods in her life. Her favorite fruit is fresh peaches, "but they have to be 'just so.'" Water is her favorite drink. 

Joyce lamented that her parents were so stupid in retrospect, thinking on it now, it is a wonder she lived. They had a wooden bucket that would grow all kinds of stuff (mold, algae, whatever) and they had a hydrant out in the front yard to fill it with, then use a ladle that one would dip into it and get water to drink. Everyone drank out of the same ladle. Maybe they all lived longer because of that? Joyce guesses they figured they were lucky to have a bucket and a ladle at all at the time.

Participant observation:

Joyce has "discovered" the lumps on her head for the fifth time since ~ 9 a.m. this morning.

Current location:

Gritman Medical Center, Room 226.

Current pain level:
3 out of 10 when asked by nurse at 7:55 p.m.

Visiting information:
No change from previous post. 

Confirmed with nurses' station shift leader - currently only 1 visitor per day for Joyce, no exceptions. Once current visitor departs Joyce's room, no further visits for the rest of the day. No swapping out visitors (example, Dusty cannot remain on hospital grounds while Craig goes to sit with Joyce for an hour and then Dusty returns to room).